Anyone used AWD-IT (HDMI Ltd) shop on Ebay?

[Inspector Blake]

Bit unfair in my opinion to accuse a firm of being "con-men" and "scammers" especially this one. I've known these blokes for years and they're all decent lads, honest and hard-working, doing their best to give good prices and maintain a decent level of service, which is hard in this cutthroat industry as I know only too well. I used to work in distribution years ago, and it's horrible, very little profit to be made and you have to cut costs to the bone to be competitive.

AWD are a small outfit, set up on their own after getting fed up of working for a very shoddy outfit that really does rip its customers off, naming no names but is also based in Stoke-on-Trent These lads work long hours and, I can promise you, are not in the game of ripping people off. Ok some of you might say that I'm a plant, someone who works there just posting good stuff, well you'll have to take my word that I'm not, I wouldn't work in distribution or retail again if my life depended on it, I actually work as a software consultant to the public sector. I buy the odd thing off them, they're local and I know them well, I always try to put work their way, sometimes they can do it, sometimes they can't and I go elsewhere. I would always use them in preference to a certain other online retailer alluded to above, a dreadful company that I wouldn't p*ss on if they were on fire.

In this game, almost everyone buys on price, and if price is your main concern it's unfair to expect gold standard service. Look at how eBuyer and Scan used to be a few years ago, bl**dy awful, now they're very good but that's because they're big enough and profitable enough to be able to invest in service. Smaller outfits don't have that luxury and do the best that they can, like AWD; sometimes they get things wrong, who doesn't? some customers fall through the cracks and let's face it you can't please all of the people all of the time. And if you pay for Royal Mail delivery well good luck is all I can say, if it gets there at all or in one piece you've done well. Mrs Blake has her own eBay shop for jewellery and gifts and the trouble that she has with Royal Mail you wouldn't believe, nearly 90% of her complaints are about Royal Mail, but what control has a seller got once it leaves them and enters the disaster that is the Post Office delivery system? Royal Mail miss almost all of their targets so if you want stuff delivered on time, pay the extra for a courier service.

Just because your stuff doesn't turn up on time does not necessarily mean that the company are cheating you or lying. Most suppliers display prices ex-VAT, which suits me as I claim the VAT back anyway, but just check before ploughing in, at the end of the day it's down to you to make sure what you are buying is right and that you're paying the right price!

If you do have a problem then being snotty and obnoxious doesn't help, however much comsumer websites and the like might say "be unreasonable" (which happens to be the motto of a particularly unpleasant character who runs that other company based in Stoke-on-Trent!) State your problem clearly, be firm but polite, stand your ground, and you'll be fine. Shout and scream and threaten and all you'll do is get people's backs up, they've heard it all before, and they will be much less likely to sort you out. "Tough on the phone" we used to call it, like being a "keyboard warrior" - you wouldn't behave like that to people's faces but you think that you can get away with it because you're at the end of the phone line. You get more with a smile than a frown, you get more with a bit of civility than you do yelling and screaming. I can tell you that I've put the phone down on people before now when I was working in that trade if they got nasty, working in customer service does not mean that the person becomes an rag for you to wipe your @rse on.

Take my word for it, AWD-IT are a good outfit, if they weren't, I wouldn't deal with them as I'm a cheapskate and hate wasting money, and I won't throw good money after bad.

[neologan]

just the one post? i guess i know who to ignore in this thread! Using what is well known on the hexus forums - that the stoke on trent firm has a bit of a bad rep according to many members and pretending you agree also doesn't work. Software consultant? how respectful, i now believe you are an impressive and impartial person. Nice try.

[Su8Z3r0]

Hi on the 23 i orded a psu from awd-it by phone. never used them before, it was late on so i didnt expect to get it next day. very freindly on phone. anyways it come today 25 @12.00pm, so iam very happy now, cause after i made my order i found this forum and immediately was disheartened. i will be using then again and ill recommend awd-it to my friends.

many thx
ricky

[BurnedByAWDIT]

avoid this company like the plague.

AWD-IT and ADMI LTD are a SCAM!!
i lost £347 to them, largly because i didnt read reviews BEFORE buying!

Their website says all the products are in stock, but they have barely anything in stock.
Everything they DO have in stock is 2nd-hand faulty/damaged goods which have already been returned to them, quite possibly multiple times by different customers - only to be RESOLD AGAIN.

When they send you a product, it will either arrive late, or not at all. If it doesn't arrive at all, DONT EXPECT YOUR MONEY BACK.

If you want to return an item (almost everyone does) they DO NOT refund you, they just take the item back for further re-sale, and KEEP YOUR MONEY.
The only situation you get money back is if you buy using paypal, and open a paypal dispute.
If you baught through their website you are screwed.

Their customer service is non-existant, as you would expect from a scam operation.
They'll keep you waiting on the phone while paying £1 a minute, only to tell you they have no record of your sale.
They'll ignore your emails completely, or you'll get something back from a guy called "Chris", laiden with arogance and rudeness, saying how you should stop 'bothering' them.

Their 'president' "Alex" is a scam artist, an outright criminal. A brief search of customer reviews for AWD-IT will verify this. That is, unless you encounter the vast hordes of fake positive customer reviews Alex writes for himself.

DO NOT TRUST AWD-IT OR ADMI LTD WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD DETAILS.
DO _N_O_T_ BUY FROM THEM.
You will be burned like i did.

-Jeremy

[spoon_]

What's up with these 1 posters?

[Mr_Biz]

Because nearly 2 years ago I was so incensed that I had dealt with such a bunch of con artists that I felt the need to tell as many people as I could. I mean any business that you google and the 3rd most popular result comes back and its this post... I guess a few other people also felt the same.

My parts did eventually turn up 4 weeks later than they should have, and i'm just in the process of trying to RMA something thats looking like its not going to be covered due to "not being sold in the country it was supposed to be in".

I understand that this is a hard business to get started in, but selling grey-import parts and being dishonest with your customers from step one is not the way to go about it.

[AvisAustin]

How Mature. You dont even know who Alex is and are not in a position to make a defamation like that. I'd be extremely interested to have the details of your order so i can at the very least inform the people on this forum that your points are in fact false.

Direct Loan Servicing
Direct Loan Source

[WolfWare]

...so i can at the very least inform the people on this forum that your points are in fact false.

Sigh... there are a 103 (104 now) posts on this forum in reference to AWD, most reflect poorly on them and like me regret not discovering this thread before placing an order. This isn't rocket science, we all have a voice and in this instance the significant majority say AWD are a poor choice. They are not on trial but if they were there are enough testimonies here to reflect the reality and the truth.

Bottom line, I hope you discover this forum thread before you order from AWD. Shop elsewhere.

Alternative example. I ordered a 80 Watt (RMS) stereo amplifier off eBay last week (not AWD), it turned up quickly but the external cables and connectors were missing, I informed the seller, a few days later the cables and connectors arrived, along with another 80 Watt (RMS) stereo amplifier!

Now that is what I call customer focus and service, I put my happy hat on to celebrate... d:o)

Let me think AWD, or an alternative, well praised company, with a positive history of customer delivery... ...hmm?

WolfWare.

[blueboy2419]

I really thought I was savvy but failed to google before comitting .............

AWD-IT is the worst company I have ever dealt with. On 13/11/10 I ordered a USB drive from the AWD-IT site, attracted by the price. The item was shown as 'in stock'. I paid immediately with PayPal. A couple of days later I tried to log into the AWD-IT website to check the status of the order. For some reason the site wouldn't allow me access so I emailed them to find out why. Sadly they replied that there was a one week delay on supplying the drive. When I queried the 'in stock' claim, they admitted that they didn't have any at the time of the order. When I pointed out that their site was still showing the drive in stock, they came up with some stupid excuse about their system not updating stock records properly.

I stupidly believed the one week story. Now, ten days later, AWD-IT tell me that there is a further delay on obtaining stock. Now you might think that AWD-IT's supplier had let them down, it's not their fault. But ........

Throughout this whole time, AWD-IT have been running a 'buy it now' item on eBay for the exact same drive, claiming there are 10 available (at the last check 4 were sold). When I asked AWD-IT to explain this, they admitted that they didn't have stock to meet these orders either.

My inevitable request for a refund has been met with the statement that it takes up to 15 days to process a PayPal refund !!

Fortunatley I raised a claim with PayPal right away and have escalated it for a refund. Even so, I still have to wait 10 days for AWD-IT to respond.

I understand the cut throat nature of business these days but obtaining payment for goods you claim to have when you don't is a step too far. Why buy stock up front when you can use customers money to buy it after they have ordered?

I'm of the strong opinion that any positive reviews of AWD-IT must have been penned by themselves.

Do yourself a favour, avoid AWD-IT like the plague.

[keiron]

I really thought I was savvy but failed to google before comitting .............

AWD-IT is the worst company I have ever dealt with. On 13/11/10 I ordered a USB drive from the AWD-IT site, attracted by the price. The item was shown as 'in stock'. I paid immediately with PayPal. A couple of days later I tried to log into the AWD-IT website to check the status of the order. For some reason the site wouldn't allow me access so I emailed them to find out why. Sadly they replied that there was a one week delay on supplying the drive. When I queried the 'in stock' claim, they admitted that they didn't have any at the time of the order. When I pointed out that their site was still showing the drive in stock, they came up with some stupid excuse about their system not updating stock records properly.

Another victim of AWD-IT. Yep, I have pretty much the same situation apart the item I ordered from them was a Zalman ZM-NC3000U Ultimate 17inch Notebook Cooler. Rang them up, spoke to a gent and he read out; I mean told me their famous short story about how they have only received half of the stock they ordered from the supplier, so they don't have any in stock to meet my order (if you clicked on like I did straight away, you need not read any further); all down to a "human error" blah de blah. Then they said that they will receive stock tomorrow and have it on my doorstep for Friday....
However after reading all the reviews and constant about AWD across the net, I can already see where my order is going....
The short story itself is a load of After all you can;t bull a bullter!

I understand the cut throat nature of business these days but obtaining payment for goods you claim to have when you don't is a step too far. Why buy stock up front when you can use customers money to buy it after they have ordered?

I'm of the strong opinion that any positive reviews of AWD-IT must have been penned by themselves.

Do yourself a favour, avoid AWD-IT like the plague.

Couldn't have said it any better myself. Absolutely disgusting.


Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention, the item is still "In Stock!" on their website.
Wow, haven't used the internet to rant/complain in years, nostalgic.
Sorry to drop a great big steaming cyber turd on your forum, but hey when you gotta go, you gotta go!

[Mr_Biz]

What a bunch of jokers.

F*** them. They don't run a business, they run a joke.

It's taken me 4 months to get a refund for a power supply that has pretty much ruined the rest of my system. I was told I'd have to wait for my refund as they were waiting to receive a refund from their suppliers. 0/10 points for customer service there lads.

I was also told "You had the Power Supply almost 2 years before sending it back"... Well it has a f***ing 2 year warranty on it, what's your point?

I finally got my refund after 4 months of waiting; that's 4 months after sending the power supply back again.

So £90 on a power supply, £8 on delivery, £8 on having to send it back again, and an £85 pound refund via paypal cos they couldn't be bothered to send the payment properly and have cost me yet more money.

Worst, ABSOLUTE WORSE experience buying anything on the net in my life.

These guys are bulls**t mongers of the highest order and if I ever get my hands on anyone with anything to do with this company i'll get the rest of my refund in blood and tears.

DO NOT EVER PURCHASE ANYTHING FROM AWD-IT EVER.

[Martindale]

Well thought I'd just say I found this thread half a day after ordering with them and I'm very worried now to say the least! Though this wasn't the first thing to make me think; theire site says my order has been dispatched through FedEx but I've been given no carrier number.

No replies to my emails or MSN questions. Going to call tomorrow if they haven't gotten in touch/I haven't received my order.

Made my order on Monday, midday. Dispatched Tuesday. Today's Wednesday, so its completely reasonable to have not arrived yet, just worried and these guys seem to have no customer service.

Wish me luck!

[Martindale]

Decided why wait and called, no waiting time, got through to someone who went to check on my order for me and they said that it's waiting to be collected by the carrier. Which is a lie to what their site reads, which is 'Shipped'. But nevermind; the guy said that it should be with me tomorrow or at the most latest Friday! So time shall tell!

[Martindale]

As a late update!

Thursday rolled by, and then by the end of Friday there had been no delivery! There wasn't even an email 'Steve' (I think) said he'd send me to keep me updated on my order. So as you can guess, agitated I called up and asked where my product was. Their answer?

They weren't in stock of the MSI motherboard I had ordered. Hang on though...my order was already packed and ready for dispatch on Wednesday...? So another lie.

They say they'll get the motherboard delivered by Monday and 'Steve' promises me I will have my order on Tuesday. The only reason I haven't cancelled my order so far is because of the faff and effort it apparently takes with them to get a refund.

Do NOT use this 'company', they have no stock in, do not care for their customers and repeatedly lie.

[Martindale]

Today's the day! It's decided that if I don't receive the parts today, I will buy from my usual webstore (not saying which so people don't believe this is advertising for them) who are now in stock of the parts and be cancelling my order with AWD.

Also, for the second time one their of staff has not rang me at a pre set date to update me on my order. Why offer if you're not going to do it?

[Phage]

Good luck with a refund ! If made by credit card you can recover from the bank.